The Echoes of Pain

He is in pain.  The worst type of pain, the type that includes a loss of hope, a loss of faith in others and stems from a loss of love; it’s a common life pain.  This pain runs deep and whenever it surfaces brings other pains with it.  Pains from other areas of life that seem to be buried deep beneath the surface yet always rise to the occasion and join in with the fresh pain.  This pain will go away, with time, but it may come again in the future, as part of the past pains when a new pain comes.  It could be prevented.  A heart can be hardened and protected, but can it ever truly be full then?  It’s a risk, to un-harden a heart, to try to remove the callouses and risk the pain.  The pain in the pain is sometimes from knowing it could have been prevented.  That it never needed to be there.   But it does need to be there.  To fully love, it needs to be there.  

There is pain in watching him.  A pain in knowing his pain intimately as it echoes my own past pains.  Echoes of pain that once slashed deeply and viciously with very little hints of mercy.  A familiarity with the loss of hope and love.  I know it is not my pain, but for a moment it is mine as it hauntingly echoes.  A shared pain, yet not shared. His pain real; mine from the past, wanting to cry out, "I know, me too!" and to soothe and comfort as the echoes resound through me.  But echoes are different from the real pain, even though there is a familiarity with the pain, there has been healing. 

He’ll be okay. He’s in God’s hands.  The pain is in God’s hands.  Someday, his pain too, will just be an echo.